Entertainment Editor

It will be a  nostalgic summer at Walt Disney World.

Maybe you won’t get to see Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride or fly with Eastern Airlines on If You Had Wings, but the clock has been turned back at the Magic Kingdom this summer with the return of the Main Street Electrical Parade.

The parade, which originally debuted at Disneyland in 1972 and at Walt Disney World in 1977,  marked its return at the Magic  Kingdom last weekend. The electrical parade was last seen at Walt Disney World in 2001 and is part of Summer Nightastic!, an evening show that includes a fireworks finale.

You may not even notice some of the changes with the Main Street Electrical Parade, the familiar synthesizer theme is back, as well as classic floats such as the diamond mine of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, and the Pleasure Island haunts of Pinocchio.

But there are lots of behind-the-scenes changes in this 2010 version of the parade.

The parade twinkles with approximately half a million lights.  Of those, nearly 10,000 are new “pixie dust” lights spread over the 23 parade floats, according to Disney officials.  The new LED lights use one-quarter of the power of incandescent lights.  A new control system makes it possible, for the first time, for each light to be programmed individually. One example is the new Tinker Bell float, which has 160 dimmers, by far the most of any parade float, to control the lighting.  Programming for the  parade took approximately two months.

Some more parade “fun facts:”

• More than 80 performers appear in each presentation of Disney’s “Main Street Electrical Parade.”

• There are 11,000 lights on the dancers’ costumes alone.  Thanks to the energy-efficient LED lights, some of the dancers’ costumes now carry only one battery pack instead of two.

• All the floats are battery-powered. More than 500 batteries supply power for lighting, propulsion, audio and special effects.

• The tallest float in the parade is the Cinderella clock tower, at 18.5 feet tall.

• The Fireworks Finale float, the longest in the parade, has seven cars that span 118 feet.

The weekend visit to the Magic Kingdom had many people arriving at the theme park just to view the return of the parade as well as the  “Summer Nightastic! Fireworks Spectacular.” Parade diehards line the streets of the Magic Kingdom an hour early or longer to get the best vantage spots.

The parade is held twice nightly, with the fireworks show at 10 p.m.

The fireworks show is also 25 percent larger than the previous summer show,  Chris Oyen, show director said, so no matter where you are in the park, you are surrounded by fireworks.

Also as part of the summer features at Walt Disney World is the Sounds Like Summer music show at Epcot. Each evening, through July 31, popular rock-band tributes will take place at the America Gardens Theatre.

The schedule includes:

June 12-19: Stayin’ Alive – A Tribute to The Bee Gees

June 20-26: Hotel California – A Salute to the Eagles

June 27-July 3: Karin Lawson – A Tribute to Janet Jackson

July 4-10: Satisfaction – The Rolling Stones Tribute Band

July 11-17: Slippery When Wet – The Ultimate Bon Jovi Tribute

July 18-24: 2U– A Tribute to U2

July 25-31: Beginnings – A Tribute to Chicago.

Epcot also is home to the Captain EO, the Michael Jackson 3D film. The film, featuring an action Sci-fi script with Jackson, returned to Epcot in May.